Saved By The Firefighter
Chapter 98

Ben's Point of View

I am stood here staring at my poor mother who looks like she wants to curl in a ball and die. I can hear the boss being polite, but firm with his ex-wife who is going on ridiculous, especially as there is a 3-year-old in the room with them.

I may be quiet, or known as the gentle giant, but when it comes to the mother, I am not so quiet, and not so gentle.

She has been through enough heartache in her life, and certainly does not deserve s**t from a woman who married someone else within a year of divorcing the boss.

We all know the poor bloke hardly went out and socialised, for years he has remained single, and now he has found companionship with my mother, she is booting off, and being totally disrespectful towards her. Well, not on my watch!

I stride through to the kitchen, bending my head down to fit under the door frame, and stand, giving the woman my best Paddington hard stare. Without a word from me, just the continuing eye contact and look of disgust mixed with anger on my face, all her bluster seems to disappear.

I am not going to raise my voice, after all there is a kid in the room, who loves both his grandparents as he should, but I am also not going to let her call my mother an 'opportunist slut' as she has just spat at the boss.

"I think you need to stop what you are saying right now." I say, my voice normal level, but my intent clearly known in my tone.

To be fair to the boss, he is taking none of her crap lying down, he is defending my mother amazingly well.

"Your thoughts about Kelvin's relationship are not required or valid. I think you should calm yourself down and remember there is a child in this room who is confused at the moment." I continue, then smile at the little lad who is cute as a box of kittens. "Well, if he didn't have a woman here when his grandchild comes to visit, it wouldn't happen." Edie huffs out. Okay, at this, she has a point.

"Excuse me, but I did not know you were turning up. I have had no message from our daughter to say you would bring Moses around. Nor did you even drop me a text to ask if I was available. I would like to guess Catalina doesn't even know you are here, and thinks you are looking after him whilst she is at work. Now, Moses is welcome any time, my relationship with Joanne will never change that, nor would she want it to. But it is not too much to ask for prior warning so we can be ready. Now, I think you should leave, I will keep Moses for a couple of hours, until we go to work, then drop him off at his house." The boss states, the flash of anger in his eyes tells me he is a lot more upset than his calm demeanour indicates.

"Also, I require the curtsy of a knock at the door, before you barge in. I do not come to your home with your husband and walk in like I own the place. I expect the same curtesy." The boss continues.

"Yeah, yeah, we all know you gave me the house, and require a medal for it." Edie sarcastically tells him.

I didn't know he just gave her the old marital home, and hats off to him for doing that, the guy has gone up in my estimations immediately.

"What about her" Edie points to my mother with a sneer on her face.

"That is none of your business." The boss lets out a frustrated breath, as I keep my eyes boring a hole into the woman, desperately trying to keep hold of my temper a little bit longer.

"Oh, but it is my business if you think my grandson is going to be left in a house with a woman you happen to be shagging." Edie growls out.

"No, not just shagging, as I said, I am in love with Joanne, and if I have my way, she will be a permanent fixture here. However, that is still none of your business, especially as you introduced Moses to your husband before the ink was dry on our divorce papers. Tell me, does Tobias know you are here?" The boss raises his voice slightly.

Moses begins to cry picking up on all the tension in the room, and that is what finally brings my mother out of her embarrassed and shocked silence.

"Hey Moses, guess what, your granddad has some cool toys in the living room. How about we go see what we can find. I am sure you would love to play a little bit." She says without a second thought, then goes to the boss, holding out her arms to take Moses, with a look that states, 'let me get him out of here'. The boss nods at her, and ruffles Moses' hair.

"Okay my big boy, Joanne is correct, I bought you a new sailing boat. Would you like to go with her so she can give it to you?" The boss smiles down at his grandson.

Moses snuggles into the boss a little closer, but then with the wide smile that has almost every kid falling in love with her, my mother gains a little smile from him. He finally and hesitantly reaches out to her outstretched arms. Then taking him, she brushes past Edie, ignoring the woman's existence and protests. I follow the mother and Moses into the living room, as she finds the new boat, I sit on the floor with them, and we both begin to play pirates with him. Moses is soon giggling and laughing, which I will take as a win right now.

"So, he loves you." I say to my mother who looks at me and shrugs.

"Apparently, but I have to admit, I would rather have heard it from him to me, not him to his ex." She shrugs.

"Yeah, I get that. But for what it is worth, it has been clear as day to the rest of us how he feels. So cut him some slack for spitting it out when dealing with this situation." I tell her.

A few muffled shouts later, Edie storms out of the kitchen looks at Moses.

"I will see you later." She shouts, not even bothering to give the little lad a kiss goodbye. Charming.

Then storms out of the house. The boss walks in running his hands through his short hair, then looks at Joanne apologetically.

"Baby, I am sorry about that." He whispers, whilst sitting on the floor next to his adorable grandson, picking him up and placing him between his outstretched legs, and asking what he is playing. "Does she do that a lot?" The mother asks him.

"Nope, that is the first ever time. I do not understand what her problem is." The boss sighs out, but then smiles down at Moses, pointing out the different areas on the boat and telling them their names. "Well, we have some nice food, are you hungry Moses?" she asks the little one.

"I know I am!" I grin.

"No surprise there." The boss chuckles.

The mother gets up off the floor desperately trying not to flash herself, hanging on to the bottom of the boss's work shirt, and saunters off to the kitchen.

We sit with Moses playing, an uncomfortable silence between us, till the Boss finally looks at me.

"Ben, I know I should possibly had said this to Joanne first, but I meant what I said. I do love her." He whispers.

I don't respond with words, just give him a nod. After all, I don't talk that much anyway, and this conversation is a little bit weird, and uncomfortable, I maybe in my thirties but I am still her child.

The boss knows my personality so just nods back at me.

"I have asked your mam to stay here whilst I am on night shift. It will be easier for her to get to work on Monday, and today. If she has Cal's kids, they are more than welcome here. Plus, this house is closer to Hastings hill than hers is, as well." The boss continues. "That is between you two. I think Lucy is helping Cal out this weekend, at his house, so I can get some sleep." I inform him.

"Okay, well, are you okay watching this one for five minutes, I need to go talk to your mother." The boss asks.

I simply nod, then rummage through the small toy box he has to look for more toys to play with Moses, as he disappears in the kitchen.

The Mother leaves with the boss, to take Moses home, and for her to officially meet his daughter, before they start work. I head up to the station. I am three hours early for my shift, but it gives me time to prep the food for tonight.

I drop Lucy a text to let her know I am at the station, and to see if she is okay. I guess we are going to have an interesting conversation when I get home from work, when I tell her about this s**t show.

My phone rings, a second after sending the text.

"Hey, was everything okay?" Lucy asks.

I do not know how she knows I had an issue this afternoon, just by a quick. At the station, see you in the morning. Love you x Text, but somehow she does.

"Yes and no." I tell her, then proceed to tell her about what happened when I got to the boss's house.

"Oh dear. I think that is a classic case of, she doesn't want him, but doesn't want anyone else to have him either." Lucy sighs.

"The divorce was really amicable. There was zero drama when she got with her husband either. The boss just wanted her to be happy." I tell Lucy, still perplexed at Edie's reaction to my mam.

"Yeah, but obviously she is still pissed about some stuff. It is okay to be amicable when it is you moving on, but when it is the other person, she obviously doesn't like it. Some women, and men to be honest, are like that." Lucy sighs. "How is your mam in all of this?" she asks.

"Not had a chance to ask her, she was putting on a brave face when Moses was with them. However, the boss told his Ex that he was in love with my mother." I tell her.

"Oh wow, that is good." I can practically hear my girl smiling down the phone.

"Would have been, if he had told the mother first." I chuckle slightly.

"Oops. Well, I have a client call, so have a good night, I will text you when I get home. Hope you have a quiet shift." She tells me.

"Yeah, Friday nights on shift are never quiet." I laugh, because although we may not get many shouts, being stationed in the city centre on standby for the pubs and clubs are always full of something or other happening. Normally the ladies of Sunderland, asking about our big hoses, or if we are strippers. Something Wayne likes to try and take advantage of, and who can blame him, he is a young lad after all.

I make my way into the stations kitchen area, and start buttering the bread, I will just make us sandwiches and snacks to take in the engine tonight, as the Boss and the mother walk in. They are giggling and laughing, so I reckon everything is okay there, and I must admit, that makes me happy.

Eventually everyone walks in to begin the shift, Davey sits in his normal spot, reading his echo, Twinkle is moaning about his 'Mrs' again, stating she is dancing this weekend with a different partner because he is on night shift. For someone who only does the ballroom dancing, and dresses in sparkly costumes to keep his wife happy, he sure as s**t, sounds unhappy about it. I would have personally breathed a sigh of relief.

Wayne and Headache are arguing over the fact that Wayne had asked him to pop the hood of the engine to check the oil instead of saying the bonnet, like a normal English person. Whilst Headache rubs his leg, stretching it out, then makes his way to the medicine cabinet and grabs some paracetamol.

Josie is the last to arrive, which is unusual for her, but she has brought a tin full of cakes, and like always they are gone within ten seconds flat. She rescues two of them, then heads down to the office. I continue to make up the food bags, when she returns bright red in the face, with the cakes still in her hand. Not sure what that is about!

"I am going to see if there is any news on my part time application." Twinkle shouts, heading towards the corridor.

"Oh, Twinkle, the boss is...erm... in a meeting, maybe do that later." Josie states, then sits down next to Davey asking how his sister is.

Our shift begins, and the mother is still in the office, she must be waiting for the boss to give her a lift back to his when their meeting is over.

Suddenly the alarm bell rings, and we all jump into action. Unusually dispatch is contacting Josie through her headset before we even get to the engine.

"Ben, bomb threat at city hall, they are evacuating everyone from the buildings around, including Anders offices just behind. We need the boss." She tells me.

"I will go get him; you get to the engine." I tell her running down the short corridor then open his door.

I see a pair of my mother's shoes under the desk, suddenly there is a loud bang as she hits her head off the bottom of the desk, and the boss is scrambling to do up his trousers.

"Really! MOTHER!" I groan out, not what I wanted to witness.

"Bomb threat at City hall, we need to go." I growl at the boss.

As my mother shouts out. "I dropped my pen; it is not what you think."

Yeah, right of course she dropped her pen, and happened to unzip the bosses trousers on the way down to pick it up, today just gets more embarrassing by the second!